Among the most important tasks in the field of cleaning of oil and oily products pollutions from different surfaces are creation of a highly efficient and cheap method of gathering oil, of an adsorbent, and also a method of producing an adsorbent, providing for localization of spills of oil and oil products by binding a spill into a lumpy mass. This lumpy mass can be easily gathered by mechanical means, kept on the surface, and is not significantly moved. In case of a land spill, the method must provide a localization of the spill, binding the spill into another lumpy mass that is easily removable by mechanical means, so that the oil is prevented from reaching the underground water. Such method must provide the degree of cleaning of water surfaces of up to 99%. The method must also allow a possibility of regeneration of oil or oil product that is gathered by the adsorbent. Implementation of this method should not require any special new technology. The method enables long preservation of the adsorbent, besides, a necessary quantity of the adsorbent can be prepared where it is applied.
Conventional methods of cleaning of oil and oil products from water surfaces, are based of on a use of adsorbents.
These conventional methods utilize adsorbents having porous construction materials (slag, expanded perlite, brick crunib, expanded clay aggregate, vermiculite) treated for water repellency by vapors of residual fuel oil, tar, bitumen, or technical oils.
Conventional methods which use the above-described adsorbents provide a high degree of cleaning of oil products from water surfaces.
When these conventional methods are used, the adsorbent is regenerated by transmitting a gaseous heat-transfer agent at 180-350.degree. C. within 30 minutes.
A disadvantage of the conventional methods which use construction materials and wastes that are treated for water repellency is a use of substantively complicated technology, including both the process of water repellency treatment, and a complexity of applying the adsorbent to a spill of oil or oil products, especially if a spill is large enough.
This conventional method suggests using water-repellency treatment process in the immediate are of a catastrophe site.
Another conventional method uses an adsorbent such as a glass wool made of liquid glass and impregnated by silicon oil which contains SiOH group to increase affinity of silicon oil and glass.
However, this conventional method is very costly.
Another method uses as an adsorbent empty glass microspheres, with density 50 to 200 g/cm.sup.3. The empty glass microspheres treated for water repellency by 2-20% solution of methylchlorinesilane, dimethyidichlorinesilane, mineral acids or a mix of these products for a total neutralization of alkaline groups of glass.
A method of gathering of oil spills and oil products based on this type of an adsorbent is very expensive and technically complicated because empty glass microspheres are produced using thermal blowing-out process under a pressure of liquid glass with predetermined relationship and predetermined density, and then further processing by expensive products (silanes).
Another conventional method of cleaning oil products from oil surfaces is a transmission of water with an addition of residual fuel oil through an adsorbent, an aerosilica, a gel exposed to water-repellency treatment by gasified marine residual oil, bitumen, or technical oils transmitting a gaseous heat-transfer agent at 180.degree. C. for 80 minutes. The oil leaks out of the adsorbent for 40 minutes. Residual fuel oil capacity of the adsorbent decreases 4%.
The above described conventional method is disadvantageous in that a complicated equipment is utilized, and high power intensity of the adsorbent is required.
Another conventional adsorbent adsorbs oil pollutions, which represents a homogenous mixture of an aluminosilicate material (bloated vulcanized glass), cellulose fiber material (newsprint or craft-paper, flax combings, wood chip) and water repellent impregnator (bitumen, pitch, siloxane, or silane).
This composition can be also used to clean the oil from water surfaces or can be used as a strata through which water polluted with oil is filtrated. The efficiency of this composition is not high enough and not all the ingredients are always available.
Another conventional method of producing an adsorbent for cleaning oil from water surfaces uses sawdust which is infused by melt of hydrophobic filler, being an emersion oil which is a waste of thermal processing of wood is used as a filler.
The infusion is performed by mixing hot (50-80.degree. C.) original ingredients taken in mass relation oil : sawdust 0.5-2:1. A waste that has not been previously used is utilized in this adsorbent, but its efficiency is not enough for gathering oil from water surfaces.